The Cabinet plans to approve both an initial budget for fiscal 2017 and an extra budget for the current fiscal year on Dec. 22, Finance Minister Taro Aso said Friday. An initial state budget is often approved by the Cabinet on Christmas Eve every ...

A Finance Ministry panel urged the government Thursday to make elderly people with higher incomes pay more for medical treatment as part of efforts to improve fiscal discipline amid Japan’s rapidly graying society. “In pursuit of restoring fiscal health, the biggest challenge is the ...

A Finance Ministry panel is set to recommend that the government sell the rights to run state-managed airports to private firms while retaining ownership of the facilities, Jiji Press has learned. The Fiscal System Council is expected to make the proposal, designed to help ...

Japanese financial institutions with huge government bond holdings face large appraisal losses if yields rise, a Finance Ministry estimate showed Monday. If yields of outstanding bonds climb 1 percent across the board, the value of outstanding government bonds would drop by an estimated ¥67 ...

The Finance Ministry proposed Tuesday that elderly people bear more medical expenses depending on their incomes to ensure fair sharing of the country’s ballooning medical costs. In its proposals presented at a meeting of the Fiscal System Council, an advisory panel to the finance ...

Finance Minister Taro Aso has urged companies to raise investment and wages as their retained earnings continue to increase. At a news conference on Friday, Aso complained about companies’ use of money, saying the proportion of funds spent on business investment should be raised ...

Japan and South Korea agreed Saturday to launch talks on resuming a currency swap deal, reflecting newly cooperative relations between the two neighbors. The two began operating a swap agreement in 2001, but testy ties precluded any effort to extend or renew it when ...

Budget requests by Japan’s central government offices for a new fiscal year from next April are expected to exceed ¥101 trillion ($1 trillion), government sources said Thursday. The requests for the general-account budget for fiscal 2017 will top ¥100 trillion for the third straight ...

Japan on Monday posted its first half-year trade surplus since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which sent energy import bills soaring and led to a string of deficits. The world’s third-largest economy logged a January-June surplus of ¥1.8 trillion ($17 billion), against a ¥1.69 ...

The government and the Bank of Japan reaffirmed Friday that they will continue to work closely to stabilize financial markets, following Britain’s decision last month to leave the European Union. “Financial markets seem to have yet to fully regain stability,” Vice Finance Minister for ...

Tax revenue collected by the central government in fiscal 2015 totaled around ¥56.28 trillion, government sources said, falling short of estimates as corporate tax revenue was reduced by the effects of a firming yen. For the past year to March 31, corporate tax revenue ...

Officials at the Finance Ministry, once regarded as the nation’s most formidable government agency, remain unhappy about their lack of influence over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent decision to put off a consumption tax rate hike for a second time. When the tax increase ...